Published Thursday 14 May 2020 at 9:27
Our Director of Public Health and Wellbeing, Professor Dominic Harrison, has written another column for the Lancashire Telegraph: ‘We’ll have to learn to live with coronavirus’.
Read it here:
Not everyone will be happy with every decision the government has made in easing lockdown restrictions.
Whatever we think, we cannot envy Boris Johnson this task.
It is probably one of the most complex scientific, social and political decisions any government has had to make in many years.
UK hospitals have not been overwhelmed so we are in a good position – but there are still big risks to manage – both personally and as a community.
We cannot be sure what will happen to the rates of infection spread as we all go out and about more.
China, Iran and South Korea have all seen quite rapid increases in cases of Covid 19 since they lifted lockdown.
So when exercising our new freedoms we all need to keep in mind that the key risks remain the same as they were at the start of the pandemic.
The virus can be infectious for about three hours in the air and up to 72 hours on surfaces such as glass, metal and plastics.
It is therefore even more important now that we consider wearing cloth face masks in public space, wash our hands regularly, stay two metres from everyone; cover our mouths when coughing or sneezing; regularly clean ‘touchpoints’ between outdoors and indoors space such as door handles and support those who still cannot go out (such as neighbours shielding or sheltering) to meet their basis needs such as shopping and getting medicines.
Without universal access to testing we cannot be absolutely sure, but we think there could be between two and five per cent of the population unknowingly infected with COVID19 in many areas.
This means that when we are out and about taking exercise or shopping, between one in 20 and one in 50 people you pass by may be infectious.
They will not know and neither will you.
In fact that infected person could be you!
So none of us can relax our guard as the lockdown rules are lifted.
In fact we need to be even more careful.
We are not going to easily pass to ‘life beyond Covid-19’ for the foreseeable future.
We are going to have to think of the immediate future as ‘living life with Covid-19’.
You can also find it on the Lancashire Telegraph website.